This is one amazing story and one of the reasons I absolutely Love Military History, specifically, WW2 History! -SF Years ago, when I first came home, I decided it would be a good thing for me to write a book. My first project, still unfinished, and now my 3rd project had the working…
Category: Historical Study
World War I History: Six Facts About the Forgotten battle that Ended the Great War
“Conventional wisdom holds that World War One ended in the west with the collapse of the Hindenburg Line; in reality it was a comparatively small clash in one of the war’s forgotten fronts that precipitated the downfall of the Central Powers.” WHEN GERMANY signed the Armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, the Central Powers were still in a…
Brush-Up on Your History: History’s Most Infamous Act of Mass Cannibalism
On February 19, 1847, the first rescue party reached 45 pioneers stuck in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains of northeast California. They’d been stranded there with virtually no food or supplies for four months, and lost 36 companions, many of whom they ate in order to stay alive. You’ve likely heard of the Donner party…
Military Weapons from the Past: The DP Machine Gun aka “Stalin’s Phonograph”
Since 1928, the battlefields of the world have seen an oddball Soviet-era weapon that proves the truth of the old saying, “Looks aren’t everything.” Its nickname was once “Stalin’s phonograph” — and the staccato tune it plays is the sound of automatic fire. Used by the Russians to gun down both the Finns and the Nazis,…
Brush-Up on Your History: Unhinged! 10 of History’s “Craziest” Military Commanders
“Consider some of these ‘mad’ commanders from the pages of military history.” GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON ONCE DESCRIBED HIMSELF AS the best “ass-kicker in the United States Army.” It’s a claim that’s not without merit. In just nine short months beginning in July of 1944, the flamboyant four-star led his Third Army half way across…
Espionage Files: Richard Sakakida Spied on the Imperial Japanese Right Under Their Noses
The Nisei war hero endured torture and near-starvation, yet passed valuable intelligence to the U.S. Army It was 1942, not long after the fall of the American stronghold of Corregidor that guarded Manila Bay in The Philippines. U.S. Army Sgt. Richard Sakakida was in the hands of the dreaded Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese military…
Brush-Up On Your History: 22 Brutal Dictators You Never Heard Of
Representative government has been a luxury that relatively few people have enjoyed throughout human history. And while the vast majority of dictators fall short of Hitler- or Stalin-like levels of cruelty, history is rife with oppressors, war criminals, sadists, sociopaths, and morally complacent individuals who ended up as unelected heads of government — to the tragic detriment…
Matthew Bracken Talks SHTF and Dirty Civil War
MATTHEW BRACKEN is a former Navy SEAL (BUD/S Class 105), a Constitutionalist, and a self-described “freedomista”. This interview was first published in the Fall 2014 issue of Forward Observer. You might think that the most courageous thing Matt Bracken’s ever done is taking a SEAL team to Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, the same year of…
The Bad-Ass Files: Donald Blackburn, Unconventional Warrior
“With a regiment of nearly 5,000 guerrillas at his back, Blackburn began a campaign that systematically destroyed the Japanese 14th Army within the Cagayan Valley.” THE FIRES ON Bataan burned with a primitive fury on the evening of April 9, 1942, illuminating the white flags of surrender against the nighttime sky. Woefully outnumbered, outgunned, and…
World War II History: Planting Dragon’s Teeth in the Enemy’s Garden, The Jedburghs
The SOE and OSS Operations during World War II have been a fascination of mine since I was a boy. In fact I am currently working on a trilogy of fictional short stories based on their amazing operations. The Jedburghs are an integral part of this history.-SF …